A big thanks for everyone showing an interest in this build, it's been a long journey and it does not stop here, I'm still not done with the closet to put it in or the new desk setup, so will do some little updates as that comes along to.

But the main attraction is done:

It's a really really tight fit to make everything I wanted possible in this case, but I did it!

Bonus beauty shot:

My re-made GPU cooler and active m.2 cooler is both working like a dream

That slim 15mm fan was a really good idea, on top of a AquaComputer Kryo M2

If I had not made a long build log about it, then you would probably not have a clue about all the work I have gone trough, I have exchanged every screw and pop rivet in the case, painted, put vinyl, drilled and more on all surfaces.

It was already a very rare and unique case to begin with, now even more so.

And now, the killer panda!

The really strong sunlight played monkey tricks on me, it is red and black, not orange, will try and get better pictures indoors another day.

This is the front logo seen from indoor light, more like how it looks in real life.
The black aluminum and black vinyl is almost the same tone, so it's only in very specific angles and light conditions that the panda is visible, it's a shy animal.

The closet setup at the spot it was intended to be right from the start.
You can also kind of see the 3x ML140 Pro white light fans there suck air up to the upper compartment, where the other 2x ML140 fans are placed on the inside of the air ducts - with the help of the 2x ML120 inside the ducts to draw the hot air out.
Works better than I could have hoped for actually, at idle the CPU is staying around 40C with a very warm room temp of 27C because of summer.

Tried to take pictures so you can see the helping mirrors, they are mostly for a purpose other than *bling*, but actually they are more useful when the system it not finally installed and the system can be pushed around a little, as I can way better look behind it and inside it, to see if everything is installed the way I intended it.
Remember, it is a closet after all, there is really limited space and I have to stand on something to reach there, so to get all the help I can i.e. to plug in a cable behind, that is a huge bonus.

Speaking of mirrors, I did the same behind my big a$$ monitor.

Here it's slightly easier to show you what the purpose is.
I can see the inputs!

Looks like this from the front, the "bubble" at the end of the table is my brand new Hue Go lamp that I just picked up, am charging it now to play around with tomorrow.

Same setup looks something like this at brighter light.
Sorry for the colors, my camera and indoor light is not the best combo so tried to compensate in post process and ended up at this.

From another angle

If you wonder why I have 2 keyboards, then the wireless Logitech one is connected to 2 machines below the table, where I'm also hiding my music DAC I use for well yea, music, and right now my surround headset is plugged into one of the machines, my "Mini3" i3 based tiny magnetized PC that can carry it's own weight under one of the desk shelves.
The other one is an even lower powered Linux machine only used to browse the web on, if I don't need any power for anything extra, build both of them out of scrap parts I had laying around from other builds that are worth too little to sell but are too good to throw away.

I'm trying to keep it pretty clean with no visible cables under the desk, mainly because my son loves to stay under there when I play games, so he can watch a movie or sleep.

Stay tuned if interested in a last update about the numbers of this PC, all the specs and benchmarks. Cheers m8

Well, this build is certainly a situation of old dog, new tricks. I learned something new today.

I wrote a email to Highflow.nl were I have bought the radiator from. Just to be sure if the strange looking threads was a RMA or not.

Got an answer back that this totally looks like the brazing technique Hardware Labs use to join pieces together, like to make the threads stick to the tank, and is nothing to worry about.
Nice, but what the H is brazing and post-brazing?

Looked it up, and it looks like it basically means its joined together with flames!
Well then all is good, fire is really rock n' roll!

I just tried using one of my old fittings, a fillport, and actually looks like the "rust" looking surface comes off relative easily, just wish i had a longer thread to screw in all the way.

There is shinny nice cobber under it! The O-ring made a dirty mess, but cant be seen when there's a fitting on so no worry.

---bonus question, can you see a difference in the color and/or sharpness of these 3 pictures? They are taken with my actual real "old-school" camera, instead of my smart phone. To me it looks better, but i'm unsure.

I'm hoping I can soon start actual work, but there are quite many pieces going into this and still packages to pick up.

Today something interesting arrived:

* Thermal paste, Hydronaut as im real tired of the gooey consistency of Kryonaut (I usually use Kryonaut but its time for a change)
* Sleeved extension wire for the pump, both because its sleeved and look better than the standard Laing wire but also because im actually not sure the original would be able to reach, now it will
* Backplate for cooler operation and more stable mount
* Heatkiller IV, because its supposed to be one of the best and because the two tone look fits my board pretty nicely

The block is also a discounted model, B-ware, but I really have a hard time to see were the fault should be, just like the res, but I saved quite a bit so im happy,
Maybe it will be easier to spot whats wrong when I unwrap it. For now I will leave it in its box.

In other news, I have just ordered some speciality fittings (like a extension piece and a flow meter), so now there is another package soon on its way.
No actual fittings and tubes yet, to be determined.

These pictures is by the way again taken with the phone.
I have a camera stand, light and a remote on its way for my nicer camera, so when the build starts for real pictures will be better than before. -stay tuned if this interests you

about a week has passed and not much have happened because I'm currently struck by a annoying case of winter flu. It's been snowing here the past many days and my kids have been un-well so of course its also hitting me.
energy levels are really low, so even that i have had a little more time on my hands, that time have mainly been spend on sleeping and drinking this horrible mixture:

One of the more interesting developments is i'm getting ready to assemble stuff, and for that my camera accessories arrived.
I now own a a Velbon CX-888 Black camera tripod and a China 160 LED dimmable LED light.
My Sony camera is beyond that wifi equipped and have a remote shutter app, so I can now take completely blur free pictures with enough light.
For the pictures in todays update they are actually taken freehanded as I did not feel like unfolding the rather complicated tripod this time just for this.

I know I said I would not make more pictures of just stuff coming home, but when its pretty interesting parts I can't help it.

Lithium grease to put in the metal base cover of my DDC pump, as recommended by EK. So now Im ready to assemble the pump.
Barrow 3-way fitting (orange bag) so I can connect my temperature sensor (the black bag), a male-male adapter (2nd orange bag) so I can connect my flow sensor (the box).
The motherboard have all kinds of connections and I think its a real shame to not use a few of them, also to learn new things and see how all this actually works.
Barrow components is way cheaper than lets say Bitspower, I actually ended up getting all these parts for same price as similar flow sensor in bitspower alone would cost.

I guess one of the reasons the price is so low, is because of finish.
Like the flow sensor looking rather matt and unpolished, but I don't really care as long as it has a stable read-out, then it does not matter how it looks. for that matter it could even be black or white or any other color (I might even paint it because of this).

if anything, it actually looks rather nice from the side

So now I have a pile of pieces, tools, drawings and much more just waiting to find its place.
I really hope my energy soon comes back and I can concentrate to get things done.

Actually fun fact, the white plastic box behind the mess, I have 2 of those, there is about 20 fans in each of various brands/qualities/sizes as I never really sell fans when I upgrade so I have along the way ended up with a surplus amount of fans. You could say, I got fans! Literally....

Some of you might know I'm a little Sketchup addicted... I admit that... But nothing beats real life 3D!
I now have so many parts I can try out some of my ideas in real, one of being - should I use push or pull on the radiator fans??

No doubt it would look nicest with pull, but I imagine I would be getting a little better airflow in push mode...
Also, if I do push and place my RGB fan frames on the outside of the rad, it will only illuminate the rad itself and that might look a little dumb.

Another thing im thinking about is, should I mount the graphics card in the 16x slot or the 8x slot?
No doubt I would get much better airflow in the 8x slot, but I get a marginally better performance in the 8x slot, its only a GTX 1070 so every little thing counts to get as much for my money as possible.

By the way, I have another package on its way from China this time, a PCI fan frame holder for 2 fans.
Was thinking I can either put them right next to the side to either suck air into the case, or to exhaust it directly trough the side - or in case I use the 8x slot I could let air blow in on the backside of the GPU as it is getting seriously toasty on the back of the card.

Don't mind the finger guards on a few of the fans, I have a lot of these ML120 fans and have used them in various combinations since I bought them.
The GTX 1050Ti box is the card I use in another of my builds, the length of the box is really close to the length of my GTX 1070 so that's why I'm using it here to mock up.

I don't think I have mentioned it, this build is only financed by me, no sponsors.
So at every decision I have to make the right choice as I can't afford to make mistakes.

So I am back to the drawing board, or boards.
I'm drawing on my phone when I commute

I draw at work

I mock up at home

and I'm about to get back into SketchUp for some more 3D modeling.

I think I have found a way, a combination of all this planning, will do a 3D drawing soon to make sure it all works out - and not until after that I can continue ordering fittings and pipes.

I have never claimed this is a fast build, but we are inching closer and closer to some actual exciting mod/assembly. I know these updates are boring, but thats the life of a struggling enthusiast.
Stay tuned for much more exiting stuff to come soon!

------------

One of the coming days I have to try fit the hardware in the case, because im getting prettty close to a final loop design now.
I'm 90% sure this could be it, because I think I can fit the res on top and the pump below, with clever use of a few bulkhead fittings and a mix of hardline tubes on top and soft tubes below.

This is as far I can draw it in sketchup without real measurements of fittings and tubes

Im thinking of making a small purchase of the fittings im very sure I will need no matter what, and then try figure it out from there.

Also just think I found the tubes I want, Alphacool brass tubes, they look really awesome in chrome and they come in real short lengths as i barely need any.

Still not sure what actual fitting I should use, but im looking at the Monsoon EV2 in white to keep the build white/silver/black or the new fittings from alphacool, thy look really hot.

now its coming close to 1am in the night here and im up for work tomorrow morning so i better go to bed...

I would have liked to make a update about some interesting discoveries I made on the build over the weekend but its almost midnight again so it has to wait, stay tuned for some actual hardware pictures this time around!

This is going to be a rather long update, there are many things to show this time around.

First of all, I bought a random selection of parts and accessories:

Its a stepped drill set, cutting oil, scent sticks, rubber coating (similar to plasti dip) and some paint can guns for better control.
What as all this for?

I was looking at the state of the build and got an idea, I can paint the metallic parts black and white to really make it a Killer Panda!

So that explains the rubber coating and the paint guns.
Then I tried out the placement of the res, like I had planned in sketchup

it actually fits rather nicely!

But at the same time it became quite clear how massive my graphics card is.

It fits with a fan in front, but no radiator...

I have an idea of replacing the GPU fans with a PWN fan splitter and 2x ML120 fans, because I have them laying around anyway, and that would also mean I can loose some of the hefty plastic shroud around the card.
Not totally clear if I can attach the fans somehow to the heatpipes, or If I should get a second PCI fan holder like the one I already received from eBay.

I will figure it out.

To give myself some more wiggle room I decided to remove the whole front fan holder, also to make it easier to later on paint the parts separately and put new rivets in afterwards.

The casemod have begun!

I really hope I have measured everything correct, because I'm starting to cut the case here and there.

The inlet and outlet under the res. Made with my rather cheap stepped dril set and some really good cutting oil, the oil really makes up for the drill being pretty bad.

Also, used the same method to make 2 holes in the back, so I can route the 8pin CPU power cable around the backside of the case, because else it would end up running either all around the motherboard or over the post code display or some other stupid way.

Will make more sense when I put it together but the result of the cutting turned out better than I had hoped.

I forgot to buy a digital caliper, I could use one now...

going back to the rad and fans, I would prefer the fans in front blowing out of the case, I know it gets less RGB flavor that way but will in my situation give the best temps im sure.
minor problem is, the screws I have for the rad then have too big heads to fit in the fan frames indents and are also too short to fit trough fan frames, fan, holder and then into rad...
Will see what length I need in the end when I can measure it.

Sorry for the real long update, but at least some actual progress is now happening.